


Telanadas

by CaptainDeryn



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Inquisitor Backstory, Mourning, Sibling Loss, inquisitor feels guilty over position, its a fun time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-14
Updated: 2018-03-14
Packaged: 2019-03-31 03:17:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13966206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainDeryn/pseuds/CaptainDeryn
Summary: Clan Lavellan may be alive, but the Inquisition’s forces arrived too late to avoid all casualties. Tucdela mourns the loss of family, making the journey to the sacred burial site of Var Bellanaris, laying their spirits to rest in their ancient homeland.





	Telanadas

**Author's Note:**

> Notes: Tucdela’s actions here are all based on three lines regarding burial traditions on the wiki. I made up a lot of it. Just roll with it. Just roll with the elvish to. 
> 
> All information regarding the language, rites, and gods is pulled from the wiki.

_Var Bellanaris_. 

The gates of the ancient, sacred burial ground rise in front of Tucdela, nothing more than crumbling stone pillars flanking an overgrown dirt path. Evening shadows stretch beneath the looming ruins surrounding her as she urges Spook through the pillars, the fall of his hooves sending small puffs of dust into the air to catch the fading sunlight as it filters through the stone and trees, filtering through the leaves, dappling on the ground. 

When Tucdela slides from Spook’s back--without saddle just as her people work with the halla, she slips the simple halter and lead that had been used in place of a bridle from his head and runs her hand across his flank as she slides the pack from across his back. She leaves him to nibble at the lush grass by the walls, turning deeper into Var Bellanaris, shoulders heavy with the weight of an oaken staff and the pack, her heart growing more leaden with each quiet step she takes across the dirt. 

With her bare feet and the light leather of her Dalish-made armor making little noise, she may as well be one of the ghosts whispering through the trees, stirring branches and crying for a time long lost. The forest around her is silent, despite the plains filled with birds, wolves and halla behind her all life seems to stop inside these stone ruins, a mournful silence blanketing across the burial sites. 

The sites rise around her, mounds of dirt with grass growing over them in a thick carpet. For some, the trees planted over them have grown sturdy and old, wide enough that she would not be able to wrap her arms fully around them, tall enough that she has to crane her neck to see their leaves. Some may be the _Vallasdahlen_ , life trees for the ancient heroes of the Dalish. Humble trees grow over the rest, modest sized oaks, fumbling towards the sky for enough sunlight under the canopy of their larger counterparts. Stone markers, a small, inscribed stone guarded on either side by stout pillars stand at the very edge of the mounds, names, and prayers long since lost to the elements. 

Tucdela keeps walking, mouth set in a determined line, dark lines of cracked paint made from elfroot and other herbs pulling at her skin. They overlay her own vallaslin, crossing over in the markings of the god Falon’Din, friend of the head, a last plea for the safe passage of a soul. 

She has been here before, once, to clear nesting demons away. Then she was with Varric, Dorian and Sera, friends. Now she is alone, shadowed only by her duty and her own grief. 

As the path tapers away to grass again the mounds disappear fully into flat ground, an open space of grass and other flora, wild and without significance. She follows the rays of sunlight to where they pool off to her left, in the wide space between two ancient and gnarled oak trees. She shrugs her pack off her shoulders, breath shaking as it falls from her lips, letting it drop at her feet. The twisted oaken staff that had been slung across her shoulders feels strange in her hands, its surface rough and bumpy with bark, foreign to her hands that were familiar with the smooth curve of a bow. Around its tip two feathers are tied, a hawk’s feather, an eagle’s. 

Sinking to her knees, Tucdela lets the staff lay across her lap and reaches for the pack, unlatching the top and pulling the colorful feather of a jay, bold blue and black against speckled browns and whites. Her hands shake as she tries to thread the thin cord around the feather, the trembling making it near impossible for her to knot it around the staff. One feather from each member of the family, a reminder of each. When she finally does she closes her eyes briefly, taking in a deep breath and letting it out again, trembling nearly as much as her hands. 

The evening light is warm on her shoulders and neck, but chills run down her body as she lays the staff to the side. She reaches again for the pack, gently removing a cedar branch, long limbs covered in delicate needles, and two canine leather pouches. Each she lays carefully to the side, lined up next to the staff. Seconds pass by as she stares at the objects, eyes welling only for the tears to catch on her lashes. She sniffs, ears twitching as she reaches for the first pouch, pulling from it a leather cord, decorated only with a carving of interlocking branches--a simple nod of respect and worship to the goddess Sylaise. 

The dirt is cool against her fingers as she begins to dig. The dirt is loose when she strips the first layer of grass and roots from it and she can scoop handful out, piling it at the edge of the deepening hole. The sunlight wanes as she works, fading to a twilight lit in cool blues and purples, the sun’s dying rays a brilliant orange. 

She doesn’t speak until she’s able to lay the amulet into the dirt. “Theoduin, isa’ma’lin.” 

_Theoduin, my brother_.

The words come slowly, the language of her people sticking in her throat after months without fluent use. Her voice wavers, folding in on itself in the growing night, pressed on by the silence. 

“Ir abelas, isa’ma’lin. _”_

_I’m sorry, I am filled with sorrow_. 

Her elder brother, kind and brave, always taking care of her even when her scrapes came from the silliest antics with the other hunters. With a roll of his eyes and a scolding tone he was always there for her. _Always_. 

And she hadn’t been there for him. 

She hadn’t been there for her clan when they were attacked by bandits, seeking refuge in Wycome. Hadn’t sent her forces fast enough to avoid any casualties. Theoduin, loyal and protective healer of Clan Lavellan, had been slaughtered by the _shemlen_  bandits alongside the few sick and those injured by the demons flowing from the rifts.

What _good_  was her position as Inquisitor if she couldn’t protect her clan? What _good_ was the mark on her hand if she couldn’t seal the rifts that had killed her brother before the demons got the chance? What--

With a raw sob, unmuffled in the coming darkness, heard by only her ears, she closes her fingers around the oak staff, lifting it from its bed of grass to nestle it in the dark, damp dirt above the amulet. A staff to aid the spirit along the path to the afterlife. 

“Telanadas, na melana sahlin.” 

_Your time has come_. 

Her Clan, unable to take her brother hear, to the sacred burial sites of their ancestors, sending her here with only the amulet her brother had worn until he had fallen in their place.

“La ir u na abelas.” 

_And I am left alone_. 

She lays the cedar branch across both, smoothing the needs out until it lays even, the wood bowing ever so slightly in the middle. A branch of cedar to ward off Dirthamen’s ravens of Fear and Deceit that would wish to confuse and lead a spirit astray.

Would it even matter, coming hear to rest part of him here, at Var Bellanaris? Would these tools, laid to rest here, aid him at all? Or would it be those properly laid with his body, in some foreign land where their people were unwated travelers?

“Din’tel telsila, ar jus’solas.”

_Do not worry for me, I will stand tall_. 

Theoduin always worried for her, it was in his nature. Each time she set off on a hunt, each time she left to scout. When she had left for the Conclave, making her promise that she would return safely. 

She drags the back of her hand across her cheek, wiping away tears and smearing dirt and fading paint across her skin. Slowly she begins to scoop dirt from the pile back across the hole, bowing her head as it covers the objects, returning them to the earth that they were made from. The Anchor on her hand pulses a soft, glowing green, a constant reminder of the path that had led her from her Clan. 

Maybe if she had never gone to the Conclave...

Maybe if she had never accepted the role of Inquisitor...

The moonlight casts a silver waterfall in place of the gold of the sun’s rays as the last of the dirt falls on the grave. Tucdela palms the last pouch, running her thumbs over the supple leather. The final step...she’ll have to let go. From within the pouch, she pulls a small maple sapling, small enough to fit in the palm of her hand. 

It doesn’t take her long to set the roots of the sapling into the ground, patting the last of the soil around its base. From there hopefully, it will continue to grow, rising for eternity in remembrance of her brother. 

She should have another, another hole, another part of a soul, another branch, stave, and sapling. She should have more words to say, spoken into the silently listening air for a fallen friend, another brother, this in the hunt. Lost to the demons that her mark hadn’t banished. 

She had had only the ability to carry one set. And it had to be a solitary mission or one of the Dalish people. She was the sole representative of her people among the Inquisition, it was her duty to take the journey alone. 

But still...

“Falon’din enasal enaste.” 

The word fell like rocks to the ground, her head bowed and fingers interlocked on her lap. A last prayer for the dead, both the one laid to rest at her knees, and those that she brought with her only in memory. 

By moonlight she gathers her pack and forages for elfroot across the plains, settling by the softly lapping lake to crush the herbs to a fine paste and lays it across her cheeks and forehead again, taking on the mask of Falon’Din once more. There it will remain until she returns to Skyhold, where she will receive pitying looks as she strips away all the makes her Dalish again except for her vallaslin.

_Dareth shiral._

She looked over her shoulder one last time as she led Spook from the ruins, halting by a rock so that she could swing herself up onto his back. Dawn was just rising over the eastern hills , not yet touching the ancient trees and crumbling walls. 

Farewell. 


End file.
